1. Technical Field
The present teaching relates to medical image processing. More specifically, the present teaching is pertaining to interactive medical image processing for planning a surgical procedure, e.g. a kidney stone removal procedure.
2. Description of Related Art
Lithotripsy is a medical procedure used to treat kidney stones. It uses high-energy sound shock waves to break stones apart. Usually when stones are small, a procedure called extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is sufficed to break the stones without the need of going through body. However, when stones are quite large (more than 2 cm) or in a location that does not allow effective extracorporeal lithotripsy, an intracorporeal technique called percutaneous ultrasonic lithotripsy may be used. In this method, the surgeon makes a small incision in the back of a patient and creates a tunnel directly into the kidney. A device called nephroscope is inserted into renal pelvis, and ultrasound waves are used to fragment stones. The fragments then are removed through the nephroscope.
A percutaneous ultrasonic lithotripsy procedure requires careful planning to locate the best insertion angle and entry point of the nephroscope. Currently, most of the clinical practices use 2D cross-sectional slices from CT to find the potential treatment areas. This is quite inefficient because users cannot intuitively see the full picture and the 3D spatial relationships among the anatomic structures. Instead, they need to mentally visualize the full area and determine where to insert the scope and how to reach the target area based on their medical training and experiences.
Some anatomic measurements around the renal pelvis are critical to decide the feasibility and effectiveness of the procedure. Infundibulo-pelvic Angle (IPA), infundibular Width (IW), Infundibular Length (IL), Infundibular height (IH), Inter-Calyx angles (ICA) are some of these measurements that are important for the physicians performing lithotripsy. Currently, they are mostly measured in a 2D slice view. This has some drawbacks. First, a physician needs to find a proper slice that can reveal the area that he or she can do the measurement. Second, the slice may not reflect a best angle to do the desired measurement.
Therefore, there is a need for a solution which can be used to perform interactive medical image processing for surgical procedure planning, medical research, or medical education, without the above mentioned drawbacks.